5 ms·

LinkedIn scares me more, because I think most 22-year-olds don't really foresee that they might have the need to change their career histories. The idea that yo

LinkedIn scares me more, because I think most 22-year-olds don't really foresee that they might have the need to change their career histories. The idea that you might have to bump your college degree by 5 years is unimaginable at age 22. I don't foresee myself ever needing an explicit lie, but it's hard to keep a story consistent over 20 years. The online paper trail is a bit scary. I wouldn't even have a LinkedIn profile but it occasionally comes in handy to have access to the people in the network. I think more people are going to be burned by consistency risk (even unintentional and non-deceptive) than by what we tend to think of as garden-variety embarrassing stuff. I also don't think anyone with data mining talent is going to work for health insurance companies doing intrusive cross-site work for less than a million per year (we're talking about work that isn't just unpleasant or boring but actually evil) and I can't see those companies paying that much. They'll hire more cheaply and get crappy work and the world will be fine.

tptacek 14y ago
It is a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal dishonesty on resumes. Meanwhile, we talk to lots of great people who don't have LinkedIn profiles; it is by no means a standard requirement. If you can't be honest to LinkedIn, just keep your profile off it. No matter who gets elected in November, by 2015 guaranteed-issue health insurance is going to be the norm, so this health insurance story about reading tea leaves out of Facebook wall posts to ding people's premiums seems far fetched.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  It is a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal dishonesty on resumes. It depends what the "dishonesty" is. Claiming a skill you don't have is unethical. Bumping your college degree by 5 years in order to seem 5 years younger is, in my opinion, ethically OK. There's a difference between quackery (faking a skill you don't have, and potentially hurting people) and social status inflation. One is fraud; the other is just how people work. The problem is that, if you get caught in one of those minimal and ethically acceptable lies, or are just accidentally inconsistent, HR won't make the distinction because of the mythology that small discrepancies beget substantial whoppers. In my experience, this isn't true. Deeply unethical people are so experienced with lies that they almost never get caught in the small stuff. I don't need to lie because I'm a person of high enough social status that I don't see it useful to fake, and I'm comfortable having an online presence because I foresee that remaining true, but I have no dislike for high-caliber, low-status people who use a bit of creative revision to up their game, as long as they're not defrauding or hurting people.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    I would never want to work with someone who felt like lying about the year they got their college degree was "ethical". In fact, I'd really rather not have to think too much about where the ethical line is on "lying" with anyone. Does that mean I never lie? Of course it doesn't. We've all done unethical things. Ethical people call those "mistakes" and don't paper over them.
    - Apocryphon 14y ago
      I think the concern here is that people would edit the year they would graduate in order to escape being excluded because of ageism, a trend which Silicon Valley is notorious for.
      - m0nastic 14y ago
        It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you (in which case lying about your graduation dates just causes you to have to sit through more interviews with places that won't hire you). I guess the assumption is that you might be able to "win them over" in person, assuming you get past the first interview screen? I do find myself having to try very hard to ignore my "experience bias" when hiring infosec folks. My first inclination after seeing a resume from someone with "25 years of information security experience" is to cringe (Oh good, this person has spent 20 years doing C&A's, which are fundamentally useless).
        michaelochurch 14y ago
        It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you Disagree. If you transform your career story from VP-at-48 to VP-at-43, your social status changes and the interview is a completely different conversation. Lying about actual skill is unethical, but people who are able to improve their social status by exploiting human shallowness, in my opinion, deserve everything they can gain in doing so.
- genwin 14y ago
  It's a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal problems with products, trash the environment, lobby the gov't to be allowed to trash the environment or whatever, set up shell companies for nefarious reasons, etc. Yet companies do all that. Lying on a resume is small potatoes in comparison, as horrible as it is.
- ph0rque 14y ago
  No matter who gets elected in November, by 2015 guaranteed-issue health insurance is going to be the norm... I realize it's a bit off-topic, but what factors lead you to believe this will happen by the third year of the next president's term?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- rmc 14y ago
  Facebook et al. can reveal aspects of one's political views. "Oh $NAME went to a pro-legal-abortion march? We don't want those sort of people here...."
dredmorbius 14y ago
Which is among the reasons I've revised my LinkedIn profile to a de minimas version. Name. Field. No job history. No resume. Contacts, which I keep trimmed in public views (lord knows how they're available behind my back, of course). I also maintain no FB profile. My prediction: the "social web" will end very badly. Mostly as the present cohort hits its 30s and early 40s, with concomitant life issues (marriage, children, breakups, divorce, bankruptcy, minor or not-so-minor legal issues). The real world isn't 4 years of Ivy League experience you want to brag about openly.
- drumdance 14y ago
  I actually think it will go the other way. Things that are suspect now will be treated as youthful indiscretion. Think about it: the current President admitted in his own book that he had done cocaine. That was unthinkable just 10 years ago. As Gen Y moves higher up the career ladder, they'll be the ones making the hiring decisions about the Facebook oversharers.
  - yuhong 14y ago
    IMO, that is the right solution that I hope will happen.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    Your example provides its own counterexample. The same individual has encountered persistent questioning over the specifics of his birthplace, despite ample documentation substantiating his claims. How information is interpreted depends very much on who's interpreting it and what their objectives are. Hiring processes are notoriously opaque. Corporations are, very literally, machines for creating one-way flows of liability, shielding management and owners at the expense of the public and workers. What do you think the term "limited liability corporation" refers to? How many NDAs have you signed? What are your workplace's rules regarding disclosure of employment terms and/or compensation?
    - drumdance 14y ago
      Perhaps, but it's hard to imagine private-citizen Obama not getting hired because of his birth certificate.
rayiner 14y ago
> I also don't think anyone with data mining talent is going to work for health insurance companies doing intrusive cross-site work for less than a million per year (we're talking about work that isn't just unpleasant or boring but actually evil) Dude. Top people will do work like that for far less. See, e.g., the defense industry, the coal mining industry, etc. And with billions at stake, the insurance companies will pay.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  >Top people will do work like that for far less. I don't know. In my experience, "you get what you pay for" applies to developers like anything else. If you want the very best people, pay them. Having said that, I don't know if the GP is right about a million per year. I hope it would cost at least that much to pay for such evil behavior but it will actually depend on what other offers people have. After all, TSA agents aren't getting $1m/yr, right?
31reasons 14y ago
I think you will be surprised how easy it is to convince smart people to do evil work. You just have to make it interesting abstract problem. Big Tobacco and Oil companies have been hiring smart people for decades now.
pc86 14y ago
> The idea that you might have to bump your college degree by 5 years is unimaginable at age 22. Or to anyone with a conscience who doesn't want to become known as a liar.

tptacek 14y ago

It is a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal dishonesty on resumes. Meanwhile, we talk to lots of great people who don't have LinkedIn profiles; it is by no means a standard requirement. If you can't be honest to LinkedIn, just keep your profile off it. No matter who gets elected in November, by 2015 guaranteed-issue health insurance is going to be the norm, so this health insurance story about reading tea leaves out of Facebook wall posts to ding people's premiums seems far fetched.

michaelochurch 14y ago
It is a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal dishonesty on resumes. It depends what the "dishonesty" is. Claiming a skill you don't have is unethical. Bumping your college degree by 5 years in order to seem 5 years younger is, in my opinion, ethically OK. There's a difference between quackery (faking a skill you don't have, and potentially hurting people) and social status inflation. One is fraud; the other is just how people work. The problem is that, if you get caught in one of those minimal and ethically acceptable lies, or are just accidentally inconsistent, HR won't make the distinction because of the mythology that small discrepancies beget substantial whoppers. In my experience, this isn't true. Deeply unethical people are so experienced with lies that they almost never get caught in the small stuff. I don't need to lie because I'm a person of high enough social status that I don't see it useful to fake, and I'm comfortable having an online presence because I foresee that remaining true, but I have no dislike for high-caliber, low-status people who use a bit of creative revision to up their game, as long as they're not defrauding or hurting people.
- tptacek 14y ago
  I would never want to work with someone who felt like lying about the year they got their college degree was "ethical". In fact, I'd really rather not have to think too much about where the ethical line is on "lying" with anyone. Does that mean I never lie? Of course it doesn't. We've all done unethical things. Ethical people call those "mistakes" and don't paper over them.
  - Apocryphon 14y ago
    I think the concern here is that people would edit the year they would graduate in order to escape being excluded because of ageism, a trend which Silicon Valley is notorious for.
    - m0nastic 14y ago
      It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you (in which case lying about your graduation dates just causes you to have to sit through more interviews with places that won't hire you). I guess the assumption is that you might be able to "win them over" in person, assuming you get past the first interview screen? I do find myself having to try very hard to ignore my "experience bias" when hiring infosec folks. My first inclination after seeing a resume from someone with "25 years of information security experience" is to cringe (Oh good, this person has spent 20 years doing C&A's, which are fundamentally useless).
      - michaelochurch 14y ago
        It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you Disagree. If you transform your career story from VP-at-48 to VP-at-43, your social status changes and the interview is a completely different conversation. Lying about actual skill is unethical, but people who are able to improve their social status by exploiting human shallowness, in my opinion, deserve everything they can gain in doing so.
genwin 14y ago
It's a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal problems with products, trash the environment, lobby the gov't to be allowed to trash the environment or whatever, set up shell companies for nefarious reasons, etc. Yet companies do all that. Lying on a resume is small potatoes in comparison, as horrible as it is.
ph0rque 14y ago
No matter who gets elected in November, by 2015 guaranteed-issue health insurance is going to be the norm... I realize it's a bit off-topic, but what factors lead you to believe this will happen by the third year of the next president's term?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rmc 14y ago
Facebook et al. can reveal aspects of one's political views. "Oh $NAME went to a pro-legal-abortion march? We don't want those sort of people here...."

dredmorbius 14y ago

Which is among the reasons I've revised my LinkedIn profile to a de minimas version. Name. Field. No job history. No resume. Contacts, which I keep trimmed in public views (lord knows how they're available behind my back, of course). I also maintain no FB profile. My prediction: the "social web" will end very badly. Mostly as the present cohort hits its 30s and early 40s, with concomitant life issues (marriage, children, breakups, divorce, bankruptcy, minor or not-so-minor legal issues). The real world isn't 4 years of Ivy League experience you want to brag about openly.

drumdance 14y ago
I actually think it will go the other way. Things that are suspect now will be treated as youthful indiscretion. Think about it: the current President admitted in his own book that he had done cocaine. That was unthinkable just 10 years ago. As Gen Y moves higher up the career ladder, they'll be the ones making the hiring decisions about the Facebook oversharers.
- yuhong 14y ago
  IMO, that is the right solution that I hope will happen.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  Your example provides its own counterexample. The same individual has encountered persistent questioning over the specifics of his birthplace, despite ample documentation substantiating his claims. How information is interpreted depends very much on who's interpreting it and what their objectives are. Hiring processes are notoriously opaque. Corporations are, very literally, machines for creating one-way flows of liability, shielding management and owners at the expense of the public and workers. What do you think the term "limited liability corporation" refers to? How many NDAs have you signed? What are your workplace's rules regarding disclosure of employment terms and/or compensation?
  - drumdance 14y ago
    Perhaps, but it's hard to imagine private-citizen Obama not getting hired because of his birth certificate.

rayiner 14y ago

> I also don't think anyone with data mining talent is going to work for health insurance companies doing intrusive cross-site work for less than a million per year (we're talking about work that isn't just unpleasant or boring but actually evil) Dude. Top people will do work like that for far less. See, e.g., the defense industry, the coal mining industry, etc. And with billions at stake, the insurance companies will pay.

flyinRyan 14y ago
>Top people will do work like that for far less. I don't know. In my experience, "you get what you pay for" applies to developers like anything else. If you want the very best people, pay them. Having said that, I don't know if the GP is right about a million per year. I hope it would cost at least that much to pay for such evil behavior but it will actually depend on what other offers people have. After all, TSA agents aren't getting $1m/yr, right?

31reasons 14y ago

I think you will be surprised how easy it is to convince smart people to do evil work. You just have to make it interesting abstract problem. Big Tobacco and Oil companies have been hiring smart people for decades now.

pc86 14y ago

> The idea that you might have to bump your college degree by 5 years is unimaginable at age 22. Or to anyone with a conscience who doesn't want to become known as a liar.